By STEPHEN MWEWA
A 20-YEAR-OLD woman has appeared in the Kasama Magistrates’ Court for trial in a case in which she has been accused of stealing a baby.
Petronella Mulenga of Chiba village in Kasama allegedly store a three-month-old baby girl on February 3, 2021.
When the matter came up for trial yesterday for trial before Kasama Resident Magistrate Samson Mumba, the complainant, Ms Miriam Mubanga testified how on the material day around 13:00 hours she went to Chisanga Clinic for under-five immunisation of her baby.
When she entered the clinic with her baby, a nurse told her to ask someone to hold her baby outside, so as to avoid the spread of Covid-19, as there was a long queue inside.
Ms Mubanga narrated that after time came for her to immunise the baby, the nurse then told her to go outside to get the baby, but to her surprise she found Mulenga had left.
She then reported the matter to police which led to her apprehension on the February 4, 2021, by members of the community after they heard an announcement on a local radio station that someone had stolen a baby.
She narrated while breast-feeding in court that when members of the community apprehended Mulenga and asked her to give back the baby to her she denied insisting that she was pregnant and that she had given birth to a baby three days ago even though the baby looked older with no umbilical code.
Resident Magistrate Mumba adjourned the matter to March 9, 2021, for continued trial, after Public Prosecutor Ali Goma applied that the matter be adjourned to allow him call other prosecutions witnesses.
The court had since ordered that the baby in question be in custody of Ms Mubanga, after the prosecutor applied before the court to do so pursuant to section 171 of the Criminal Procedure Code Chapter 88, of the Laws of Zambia.
